Congratulations to Sebastian Schulz for his new faculty position at the University of St. Andrews.

26 Mar 18

Congratulations to Mehul Malik for his new faculty position at Heriot-Watt University.

26 Mar 18

Boyd group reunion in Baton Rouge

15 Mar 18

Physics family photo where former Boyd-student Mark Gruneisen meets current Boyd group members Robert Fickler and Fredéric Bouchard at the International Conference on Quantum Communication, Measurement and Computing (QCMC) at LSU in Baton Rouge, LA, USA.

Marco Liscidini of the University of Pavia presents the Quantum Photonics seminar on Engineering non-classical light in integrated devices

Chinese researchers have put forward a new quantum cryptography standard which Robert Boyd has begun work to realize in the lab. (link)

Photonics breakthrough could significantly boost internet speeds

9 Feb 18

A breakthrough in materials for photonics applications could result in faster internet speeds by a considerable order of magnitude. Published in Nature Photonics, the new technology combines two known concepts: meta-materials consisting of arrays of antennas and a thin film of a non-linear material. (link)

Metamaterial could boost internet speeds, cut power

7 Feb 18

A team from the University of Ottawa and Ireland’s Tyndall National Institute and Cork Institute of Technology has developed a custom, artificial material that could improve several nonlinear optical applications. Alongside better internet speeds, the team suggests that thinner lenses could be created for cameras and mobile phones, as could

Liang-Gee Chen, Taiwan’s Minister of Science and Technology visits the Advanced Research Group.

Congratulations to M. Zahirul Alam

19 Oct 17

for being selected by the Award Committee to receive the Best Student Paper Award (first place) for his paper “Unity-order Nonlinear Index Change in a Metasurface” presented at Photonics North 2017 in Ottawa.The award certificate will be presented to him at the IEEE Ottawa Section Annual General Meeting(AGM), to be held

EPFL researchers have found a way around what was considered a fundamental limitation of physics for over 100 years. They were able to conceive resonant systems that can store electromagnetic waves over a long period of time while maintaining a broad bandwidth. (link)

Physicists have performed a variation of the famous 200-year-old double-slit experiment that, for the first time, involves “exotic looped trajectories” of photons. These photons travel forward through one slit, then loop around and travel back through another slit, and then sometimes loop around again and travel forward through a third

Robert Boyd was awarded the 2016 Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science for his to recognize outstanding contributions to basic research which uses lasers to advance our knowledge of the fundamental physical properties of materials and their interaction with light. (link)

Dr. Robert Fickler is awarded the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship for his proposal, “Twisting Macroscopic Quantum Light.”

Researchers at a U.S. university have found a record nonlinear optical response in a commonly available semiconductor (Science, doi: 10.1126/science.aae0330). The results could open new avenues for building tiny structures for many nanophotonics applications. (link)

Indium Tin Oxide Might Be the Material Photonics Has Been Waiting For

28 Apr 16

A team led by Robert Boyd, a physicist at the University of Ottawa and the University of Rochester, has found that a transparent metal called indium tin oxide (ITO), which is often used in touchscreens and on airplane windows, can achieve a particularly high degree of optical nonlinearity—making it a good candidate

A team, led by Robert W. Boyd, Professor of Optics and Physics at the University of Rochester and the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Quantum Nonlinear Optics at the University of Ottawa, has demonstrated that the transparent, electrical conductor indium tin oxide can result in up to 100 times

A twist on Hanbury Brown—Twiss interferometry offers new approach for remote sensing

8 Apr 16

In a paper, published in Science Advances today, the researchers demonstrate that for light from a source such as the Sun, random fluctuations of intensity give rise to correlations of twisted light beams. They showed the presence of these correlations by modifying a now classical experiment called Hanbury Brown – Twiss

Researchers at the University of Rochester have overcome experimental challenges to demonstrate a new way for getting a full picture of twisted light: characterizing the Wigner distribution. (link)

Robert Boyd awarded the 2016 Charles Hard Townes Award

14 Mar 16

Robert Boyd was awarded the 2016 Charles Hard Townes Award by the Optical Society of America for fundamental contributions to the field of nonlinear optics, including the development of methods for controlling the velocity of light, of quantum imaging methods, and of composite nonlinear optical materials. (link)

Physicists experimentally realize a quantum Hilbert hotel

21 Oct 15

In their paper, the physicists proposed two ways to model this phenomena—one theoretical and one experimental—both of which use the infinite number of quantum states of a quantum system to represent the infinite number of hotel rooms in a hotel. (link)

Adding Quantum Rooms to the Hilbert Hotel

15 Oct 15

An optical experiment realizes one of the room-changing operations in the Hilbert Hotel—a fictitious establishment that illustrates some perplexing properties of infinity. (link)

Robert Boyd presents his view on Charles Townes’ legacy at a meeting of former Townes Ph.D. students

17 Aug 15

Check out this video produced by the Canada Excellence Research Chair program

Our article titled “Beyond the effective index method: improved accuracy for 2D simulations of photonic crystal waveguides” was selected by the editors of Journal of Optics as a Highlight of 2015. (link)

Dr. Gerd Leuchs and Dr. Robert Boyd invited for Max-Planck-Forum in Berlin on Quantum Cryptography

A collaboration of researchers from Canada, Europe and the USA have experimentally produced Möbius strips from the polarization of light, confirming a theoretical prediction that it is possible for light’s electromagnetic field to assume this peculiar shape. (link)

Möbius strips of light made for the first time

29 Jan 15

Banzer’s team scattered two polarised green laser beams off a gold bead that was smaller than the wavelength of the light. The resulting inference introduced a polarisation pattern with either three or five twists, giving it a Möbius-like structure. (link)

How to twist light into a Möbius strip

29 Jan 15

The team used a green laser beam that was a superposition of two waves with opposing spin. The result was a beam with a polarization that varied across its width. It was circularly polarized at its centre, but linearly polarized – and with varying orientations of the polarization vector –

A 2012 experiment in which it seemed you could detect interference and also get information about the photon’s path seemed to contradict mutual exclusiveness of wave and particle properties. A new paper by Eliot Bolduc of the University of Ottawa in Canada, with Robert Boyd of Ottawa and the University

In a study detailed in the Jan. 20 issue of the journal Nature Communications,researchers from the University of Rochester and the University of Glasgow took a direct measurement of a photon’s 27-dimensional quantum state. (link)